By Jeff Mason
WASHINGTON, Jan 8 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s aides began to make their case on Thursday for a $400 million White House ballroom before a commission that oversees federal building construction and said they are considering adding a second story to part of the West Wing as well.
Trump, a Republican who had the East Wing of the White House demolished last year, has championed the roughly 89,000-square-foot (8,270 square meters) project that will replace it. The hearing was the first time that plans for the ballroom have been presented and discussed in a public setting.
Shalom Baranes, the architect who took over the project late last year, told a meeting of the National Capital Planning Commission in Washington that the ballroom will be approximately 22,000 square feet and designed to accommodate 1,000 seated guests. Trump at one point had floated having a ballroom that could fit some 1,300 people, but Baranes said the president’s team was not exploring an option to increase the project’s size.
The total area of the new East Wing, including two floors and the ballroom, would be slightly more than 89,000 square feet, he said. It will include a two-story colonnade that connects the White House’s East Room to the new ballroom.
Baranes said the administration was also considering a one-story addition to the West Wing colonnade “to restore a sense of symmetry” to the overall White House complex.
Last year Trump was seen walking on the roof of the press room, which is part of the West Wing and would likely be affected by such an addition.
Preservationists and opponents of the project have criticized the destruction of a part of the White House that housed the offices of the first lady and a movie theater, and have raised concerns that it could dwarf the main mansion. But a federal judge, while hearing a lawsuit alleging the project abuses presidential power, said last month he was not inclined to order the administration to immediately halt the work.
Trump’s aides have said they did not need approval for the demolition but are seeking a green light for the new build.
Baranes said on Thursday the new structure would be the same height as the existing building. When asked by one of the commissioners whether the height of the ballroom could be reduced, Baranes said that was “not impossible.”
SOME RESERVATIONS AMID BROAD SUPPORT
In December, the White House submitted a formal application to the NCPC and the Commission of Fine Arts for the project. The NCPC is chaired by Will Scharf, who serves as Trump’s White House staff secretary.
Scharf opened the meeting by saying the public would have a chance to comment on the project at an upcoming meeting and any interrupters on Thursday would be asked to leave. He did not have to make good on that threat.
Two commissioners expressed reservations about the size of the project. But most of the group offered broad support, including Scharf, who echoed Trump’s view that a ballroom was necessary for hosting state dinners with foreign dignitaries.
“I think it’s notable that when the president of the United States of America flies to the United Kingdom, he’s hosted at Windsor Castle,” Scharf said. “When next year the, the king … comes to the United States, more likely than not he will be hosted … in a tent on the South Lawn with porta potties.”
Large state dinners have been hosted by U.S. presidents in elaborately decorated tents on the White House grounds for years.
Josh Fisher, the director of management and administration at the White House, said at the start of the presentation that Trump’s team determined that old roofing, water intrusion, obsolete electrical infrastructure and other factors made demolition and reconstruction of the East Wing the most economical strategy for the project as a whole.
Plans to make improvements in Lafayette Park across from the White House and a “more efficient visitor security screening center” would be submitted in the coming weeks and months, he said.
Before the East Wing demolition, Trump had said the new ballroom would not touch the existing mansion. An announcement in July, still available on the White House website, says the ballroom will be “substantially separated from the main building of the White House.”
Demolition had already begun by the time the administration confirmed in October that the entire East Wing was being torn down.
Trump wants the ballroom finished before his term concludes in three years. Last week, during his holiday trip to Florida, he perused marble and onyx options for the ballroom at an Italian stone importer.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and David Gregorio)
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